It took less than an hour of deliberation for a 12-panel jury of Kendall County residents to find Kendall Batchelor guilty of intoxicated manslaughter.
Batchelor, 23, who is the daughter of luxury auto dealer Ken Batchelor, will now face trial with the same jury to determine her prison sentence.
She is now guilty of the second-degree felony of intoxicated manslaughter after driving a large pickup truck into oncoming traffic on Texas 46 June 2, hitting and killing 48-year-old David John Belter, a longtime Boerne resident.
“Kendall (Batchelor) never told you she wasn’t guilty. She never pled not guilty,” Batchelor’s defense attorney Louis D. Martinez, a San Antonio lawyer, said in his closing statements. “She took the stand. She told you where she was, what she had to drink, what she was doing … but she came up here and told you the truth.”
Prosecution rested its case Wednesday afternoon before Batchelor testified she was drunk the night she got behind the wheel of her F-250.
When prosecutors asked Batchelor if she was intoxicated while she sped down the state highway in her truck June 2 or when she missed her turn, she simply replied, “Yes.”
The young woman will now face between two and 20 years in prison – of which she will be required to serve half before being eligible for parole after the jury confirmed her vehicle was a deadly weapon.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that concludes our first phase. You may recall that we talked about how the second phase will go,” 451st state District Judge Kirsten Cohoon said. “We will start with an opening just like the first phase and then proceed into the evidence of the punishment phase.”
See the Wednesday issue of The Star for more information.
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